This past week, Autocar Magazine shared a feature on Audi’s Chief Creative Officer Massimo Frascella. The Italian designer has been making waves since his arrival in Ingolstadt – from filling a position now tied to creative control of the brand (versus simply design), to launching the Concept C with its radical simplicity design language, the livery of the Audi R26 F1 car to touching other elements such as the Audi Revolut F1 Team’s color ways that will influence new Audi models and beyond, or implementing a heritage-inspired Audi typeface within that Formula 1 presence.
There’s no doubt Frascella is leaving his mark at Audi while ushering in a fresh new era that was arguably overdue. Audi design had become more par for the industry course than industry-leading, while even the much-loved and iconic Audi singleframe grille had been so copied as to become ubiquitous.
When Massimo speaks, this website tends to listen intently. So, a feature like the one in Autocar is read with care. Given that, it seemed fitting to cast a spotlight on some of the highlights. However, there’s a lot to unpack so I’ve broken it down into ten takeaways. I plan to publish two per day in this 10 Things about Massimo Frascella series in order to dig into what was covered by Autocar with proper brand focus analysis along with it.
Before getting started, I want to take a moment to pay tribute to Autocar. This British automotive weekly has been a staple resource for me dating back long before I was an automotive journalist and into an era where I’d discover them like a treasure hunt in the car section of my local Border’s bookstore. Border’s is long gone, but Autocar remains a staple and deserves your support and respect.
#1 AUDI TT MK1 INSPIRATION
If you’ve been around the Audi brand this past year or two, you likely already know that Frascella was inspired by the TT (Mk1). Standing out from the crowd of Audi players arriving at the brand’s Münich F1 R26 Concept reveal last fall, Frascella chose to roll up in a first-generation TT rather than the legendary Audi Sport race cars that everyone else utilized.
Massimo sights taking off work to visit an Audi showroom in 1998 as his taproot moment – one where a young Massimo Frascella indulged in some time to “fawn” all over a TT sitting in a Turin Audi dealership. What drew him to the TT wasn’t just its Bauhaus simplicity and authentic embracing of Audi heritage, but also the rule-breaking it embodied.
27 years later, Frascella finds himself effectively continuing the lineage even if the Concept C doesn’t end up getting named TT as so many journalistic outlets are jumping the gun to report. And while it’s questionable and even doubtful they’ll call the car TT, there’s no question Massimo Frascella will be a leading voice int he rule-breaking rethink that’s going on at Audi right now.
Was it meant to be? He’s quoted in the piece as saying, “What’s consistent throughout my career was people feeling this association with the brand in what I was doing, and often telling me: ‘Oh gosh, you should work for Audi. One day, I’m sure you will work for Audi.”
Now he does.
Next Up in Part 2, Massimo Frascella’s background isn’t all JLR.